CCN supports community residents to create Place-based plans, that reflect the collective wishes and aspirations of those who live in that Place. We have increasingly been working with communities through the Community Life Pan process. 

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Community Life Plans

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Community Life Plans support residents to collectively identify key priorities, aspirations and tangible and intangible assets for their Place. These are identified by finding what is common and shared among the lived experiences of residents. A Life Plan includes elements such as; fundamental principles of a Place, local cherished assets, and themes for current and future action. They usually span a 5-10 year period and cover a wide range of local issues such as; housing, local economic development, community wellbeing, safety, environment/ecology, infrastructure etc. Life Plans address the complex and interrelated nature of these local issues in a jouned-up and holistic way.

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By engaging in the Life Plan process, residents collectively focus on what is important and special about their Place. This tends to motivate people to take greater responsibility and ownership of their Place. Life Plan's also provide the basis for dialogue between residents (or representative organisations such as Community, Town and Parish Councils) and local planning authorities and statutory bodies etc. They offer scope for conversations about a Place from the perspectives of those who live there. Residents are very often best placed to identify solutions to complex local issues and we at CCN believe that it is through collaborative efforts, between residents, their representative bodies, local authority and statutory bodies, that effective decision-making about a Place begins. 

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As a co-founder and director of CCN, I am excited to be part of this unique and novel approach to citizen participation and community development. Living in Scotland at this time offers significant opportunities to carry out work in the areas of community empowerment, public participation and in addressing climate change, due to the Scottish government’s progressive aspirations in these areas.

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We at CCN are grateful to Liliana Pechene and Jeremias Tunubala of the Misak community in Colombia for their Plan de Vida training, which inspired the Community Life Plan process. The Misak are an indigenous people living in the Cauca department of west Colombia, who have overcome decades of oppression to create semi-autonomous systems of governance within their territories. Despite this self-organisation, the Misak continue to face discrimination and harassment, leading to the disappearances of many community leaders. Through our work in CCN, we stand in solidarity with the Misak.

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Please see the Community Chartering Network website for more details and other work conducted.